Section 5: Teaching Skills

Chapter 26: Repetition and Drilling in the Classroom

What does it mean to teach English as a foreign language? Does it mean that you will go in everyday and give a lecture to your students? Will you go around and play games with your students every day? It will all depend on the age group you teach as well as what your school asks you to do. Typically teaching English in schools abroad will focus on repetition and drilling in order to learn a new language. It is always important to review old materials with students as well as constantly giving and showing them new information as you teach over time. The reason for this is that if you are constantly building up knowledge while showing old information students will be able to more easily remember what was taught and able to access it once they have seen and reviewed it enough. Repetition and drilling students in the classroom over the same materials is very important, however, you should always remember as a teacher how you felt when you did something repetitive or monotonous and strive to make your lessons interesting and interactive even if you have to use repetition and drilling in your English classroom. In later chapters we will talk about methods and games to use during repetition and drilling in the classroom in order to help you create efficient and fun English lessons for your classes on a daily basis.